Flynn Met Kislyak in 2015

News  |  Apr 28, 2018

President Trump's former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and his son went to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak's home Dec. 2, 2015 and had what Flynn's son later described in an email to the Russian embassy as a "very productive" sit-down. 

Flynn had met Donald Trump for the first time four months earlier.  

New York Daily News

Emails show the meeting at Kislyak's home "was arranged at the request of General Flynn or his son," according to the House report, which was made public Friday.

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About a week after the meeting, Flynn traveled to Moscow to hold a paid speech at a gala hosted by Russian state-owned media organization RT. Flynn was seated next to President Vladimir Putin during the gala.

A few months after that speech, Flynn formally joined the Trump campaign as a national security adviser.

Flynn met again with Kislyak shortly before Trump took office — a meeting that led to his unceremonious ouster from the White House after it was revealed he had lied to the FBI about it. Flynn subsequently pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators and is now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into possible collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russian government.

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The House Intelligence Committee never interviewed Flynn or his son because they both filed written statements announcing that they would invoke their Fifth Amendment rights in order to avoid self-incrimination as it applied to Mueller's sweeping Russia investigation. The committee instead subpoenaed records from Flynn and his company.

The highly-redacted report from the House Intelligence Committee also unearthed a previously undisclosed email sent from Flynn to an unnamed Trump campaign staffer on July 15, 2016.

"There are a number of things happening (and will happen) this election via cyber operations (by both hacktivists, nation-states and the DNC)," Flynn wrote in the email, using an acronym for the Democratic National Committee.

Seven days later, WikiLeaks published its first batch of hacked DNC emails. 

Trump's ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn had undisclosed meet with Russian ambassador in 2015 (NY Daily News)